On Being Ill, Part 2

As an interesting follow-up to yesterday's post on chileno v. norteamericano concepts of health:

While laid up yesterday I sent out a document to my school's English department. Our students have no workbook, which of course makes language learning next to impossible when many of said students are highly unmotivated (ie. not about to go out and find their own ways of practicing). So I've taken to writing up exercises for each Unit and sharing them with the rest of the teachers. The most recent was the Midterm Review sheet. I wrote the instructions in hackneyed but passable Spanish, but then I was able to enlist another norteamericano teacher--who is fluent in Chilean Spanish, having lived here in Valpo while in school--to rewrite them for me. I sent them out yesterday with due credit to both parties involved.

Today I received a concerned message from a very sweet Chilena teacher in the department. She is most certainly the mama bear for all of the extranjeros. She has put in an astonishing amount of extra time making sure we settled in well and is generally very sweet. Anyhow, she wrote that she was very happy that my co-author and I could team up for work, but maybe it would be better if we teamed up to go party? After all she sees me working all of the time, and the guy who was here last year (who also lived with my family) worked half the time and was sick the other half. So she is very concerned that I am working myself sick, and should let my hair down a bit.

The first reason that this is funny is that my hair is very much down, and I am surprised to find out that at work I'm seen as a little worker ant. It's true that I work a lot at school, however I do so in order to have no work to do on weekends and at night so that I can be irresponsible and hedonistic (family members: exxageration) (others: sort of). More on work perceptions of me in another post though, because I have more interesting stories about that.

The related reason why this is funny is once again the difference in perspective. As I wrote before, my immediate reaction to getting sick was, "I shouldn't have stayed out so late on Saturday." Paulina, meanwhile, reacts with, "that girl must not be partying nearly enough, poor thing."

This all ties in with something that amazes me about Chile. Nothing really gets going until around 1 or 2 in the morning. At 6am, the clubs are so full that you have no idea that it is, technically, not your night out anymore. When people say you should meet them early, they mean 11. This includes weekdays. And then, the next day, these same people get up 2 hours after getting home and go to work for 9 hours. Now, I'm pretty nocturnal, but I still get in my 5-8, one way or another.

I'm telling you the country does not sleep.

Maybe Bónicula is more culturally relevant than I presumed?

Anyhow, based on my week's experience of illness (I am feeling just about better now), I would guesstimate the Chilean recipe for health as follows:
1. As many socks as will fit in your shoes.
2. As many pairs of tights and long underwear as will fit in your pants.
3. As many sweaters and jackets as you own.
4. Absolutely no contact whatsoever with the floor.
5. No showers at any time when the temperature is not above 70F.
6. When in doubt, take a pill--any pill!
7. Party until 6am as often as possible, and don't work too hard.